The Thicket at State Legislatures

Bipartisan Beltway Committee Seeks to “Modernize” U.S. Election System

by Tom Intorcio

Voter registration can sometimes be a highly charged and partisan issue, so it is worth noting that advisers from recent Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns have recently aligned themselves to propose a new system. Trevor Potter, former general counsel to Republican John McCain’s 2008 campaign and Mark Elias, general counsel to Democrat John Kerry’s 2004 campaign are co-chairs of the Committee to Modernize Voter Registration.

The group is “dedicated to bringing the voter registration system into the 21st century by automating the outmoded system that relies on paper forms being filled out by voters and manually processed by local election officials,” according to its inaugural press release. Specifically, the Committee proposes: automated (universal) registration, within a “portable” system to obviate the need to re-register after a voter moves, and a “fail-safe mechanism” for any Election Day problems. Ostensibly, the fail-safe component would be same-day registration, currently used in nine states. A recent story by Pam Fessler of NPR’s All Things Considered gives more background on the 13-member Committee.

Run Government Like a Business: Who has the Time?

by Brian Weberg

We don't seem to hear it as much as we used to, but the claim that government would be better if "run like a business" still lurks in political campaigns and in criticisms of government inefficiencies (we even used it in a Thicket post a few years ago).  Today I was reminded of yet another reason why this prescription so thoroughly misses the mark.  In particular, government leaders--and especially those new to the job--simply do not have the luxury of time or resources available to their private sector counterparts to learn the levers of leadership and to deliver results.

My "ahah" came while listening in on a "teleforum" featuring Patricia Wheeler, an executive coach at The Levin Group.  Wheeler summarized a recent market study conducted by the Institute of Executive Development that examined "the transitions that top executives make into and through organizations, and the road blocks that can occur in the process..."  The results have interesting implications for the challenges that face legislative leaders and for the impending replacement of baby boomer executives at state legislative staff agencies.

Here are some of the findings:

• 72% of survey respondents reported that internal candidates hired into executive roles need more than three months to get up to speed and at least one-fourth need six months.
• Only 11% reported that orientation programs were effective at helping a new executive to be effective and fewer than one-third said that mentoring was useful. 
• Respondents (68%) identified "lack of interpersonal and leadership skills" as the primary cause for under performance by new executives.

My first reaction was to reflect on the "first 100 days" yardstick we use to measure Presidential effectiveness and the fact that many state legislative sessions are over in 90 days or less.  We expect our new government leaders to produce results starting on their first day on the job.  Three months to get up to speed?  Forget about it.  

Rain in Death Valley, Party Voting in California, Congress and Tiddlywinks

by Karl Kurtz

It's more likely to rain in Death Valley on any given day than it is for a California legislator to vote in opposition to the majority of his or her party on any given bill....

That's the clever lead on a Sacramento Bee story on the extent of party-line voting by members of the California Legislature.  The story analyzes nearly 200,000 (!) individual votes by senators and Assembly members in committee and on the floor to date in the 2009 legislative session, concluding that majority party Democrats voted against the majority of their own party only 1 percent of the time and minority Republicans about 4 percent.  The story has lots of cool graphics and interactive maps.

For the non-California reader, the most interesting thing was this quote:

"California is by far the most polarized state legislature" in the nation, said professor Boris Shor, with the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies, who recently published a study on the ideological composition of legislatures. "California makes the U.S. Congress look like tiddlywinks."

I searched for Shor's study and found an unpublished paper "All Together Now: Putting Congress, State Legislatures, and Individuals in a Common Ideological Space."  Shor's conclusion about California is based not on roll call votes but "on 10 years (1996-2006) of the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT) administered by Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan organization that disseminates information on campaigning [state legislators and members of Congress] to the public at large."

On p. 17 of Shor's paper are two charts that show the ideological polarization of all 50 state legislatures.  On his scale the 5 most polarized legislatures in the United States are California, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Hawaii.  The 5 with the least ideological division between the parties are Idaho, Alaska, Utah, South Dakota and South Carolina. 

The data appear to show that the more liberal states in the country have wide differences between the political parties in the legislature, while the more conservative ones have relatively small differences between Republicans and Democrats.  This does not seem surprising to a more casual observer of state legislative politics, but the data and detail in Shor's paper are interesting and reveal a few surprises (e.g., why are those Ohio Democrats relatively right of their national party scores and what about those apparently leftward leaning--relatively--Wyoming Republicans?) 

Warning: the paper is not for those who are statistically challenged or methodologically faint of heart.

Fire Alarms and Police Patrols: Two Approaches to Legislative Oversight

by Karl Kurtz

American legislatures don't devote enough time or attention to legislative oversight. That's a nearly universal complaint about both Congress and state legislatures. Legislative surveillance and control of the executive branch is hard work, not very rewarding and not something that legislators can easily take credit for, say the critics by way of explanation for the neglect of this function.

But that's a one-dimensional view of legislative oversight, according to University of California Berkeley Professor Bruce Cain in testimony before California Assembly and Senate select committees on improving state government last week. Bruce was drawing on a distinction between police patrol oversight and fire alarm oversight, terms coined in the 1980s by political scientists Matthew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz.

Police patrol oversight, like its namesake, is the routine work of "patrolling" the executive branch looking for problems in program implementation. It is usually centralized in a legislature in an audit or program review committee with a staff agency that evaluates the performance of executive agencies. It relies on formal committee hearings on agency operations and on interim studies and reports on legislative performance. Police patrol oversight is usually initiated by the legislature and tends to be formal and systematic.

Fire alarm oversight of executive programs by legislatures occurs when interest groups complain about how programs are administered, the media expose programmatic waste or abuse, or constituents report problems with government services that reveal flaws in program design or implementation. It is highly decentralized, relies on outside actors to "sound an alarm", and is less than systematic.

Town Hall Meetings: Building Trust Online

by Pam Greenberg

Participants in a series of online town hall meetings with members of Congress reported significantly improved trust, agreement, and satisfaction with government.  These online meetings, according to a new report by the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF)  and a team of academic partners, also found that Internet town hall meetings improved constituents’ approval ratings of members of Congress and increased their probability of voting for the member.   

CMF conducted most of the online town hall meetings with small groups of 15-25 constituents, but one with a group of nearly 200 constituents.  The sessions involved a moderator and a Member of Congress who spoke to constituents via Internet audio.  The constituents posed written questions in real time during the meetings. 

The sessions, conducted with a diverse group of citizens, resulted in hundreds of online questions contributing to high quality discussions about immigration and detainee policy issues. The sessions were extremely popular with constituents—96 percent said they would like to be included in similar events in the future. 

State lawmakers in Washington have held many online town hall meetings in recent years, and legislators in California and Virginia have also held internet or web dialogues with citizens. For another take, see "What's Going on with Town Hall Meetings?"

Photo credit: Eliot Kamenitz, The Times-Picayune archive in nola.com

"My bills were my babies. I loved them all"

by Karl Kurtz

In the middle of a day-long joint hearing by California's recently appointed Assembly and Senate select committees on improving state government, Bob Naylor, a former Assembly minority (Republican) leader, said, "This is the best prolonged discussion of the legislative process, in which members have stayed attentive, that I have ever seen in California."  Fifteen members were present for most of the day and asked challenging and interesting questions of a dozen or so panelists.

The most colorful, provocative and occasionally outrageous testimony was given by State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who was formerly attorney general and president pro tem of the Senate.  A few of his best one-liners:

• Referring to the cumbersome system of checks and balances in American democracy, he said, "We're part of a system that was designed not to work."  See Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee.
• In relation to a proposal to allow committee chairs to decide which bills would be heard (California has a practice of hearing all bills), he said that he wouldn't want a committee chair to determine which of his bills were heard.  "My bills were my babies.  I loved all of them."
• "As someone who has served both in the legislative and executive branches, I can say that legislative oversight is often unfair to the executive."
• "Maybe we should have graduated limits on bill introductions. You know, first-term members could introduce just a few bills, second-term members a few more, and so on..."
• Referring to the inexperience problem in the Assembly created by term limits and evidence that Assembly committees stop far fewer bills than they did before term limits: "Two-thirds of the bills that come out of the Assembly should never see the light of day....  Stop it, stop it, stop it!  Nancy Reagan was right: You should just say no."

Voter Retribution for Legislators' Votes

by Karl Kurtz

An academic researcher asked us recently about cases of voter retribution for legislators' votes on issues.  We don't track this systematically at NCSL, although we know of anecdotal cases. 

In his book, Engines of Democracy, Prof. Alan Rosenthal cites former Massachusetts Rep. John McDonough's description (in his own book, Experiencing Politics) of how some of his colleagues lost their seats over tax votes.  Rosenthal also reports on the case of Maryland Speaker Cas Taylor who lost his seat over a gun control vote and more recent examples of the defeat of Vermont legislators over gay marriage votes and Pennsylvania legislators over pay increases.

In general, the literature on legislators' votes and elections says that lawmakers seldom lose their seats over individual votes.  It's likely to occur only on high salience issues on which legislators disagree with their constituents like those described by Rosenthal.

What other examples do readers have of voter retribution against legislators for their votes?  Is there any systematic evidence on this in the literature, especially in the case of legislators votes on tax increases?

What's Going on with Town Hall Meetings?

by Bruce Feustel

A Google search of "legislative town hall meetings" produces over a million hits, revealing gatherings in Alaska, Florida, Maine, Hawaii and all points in between. With all the negative publicity over disruptive or unruly behavior at these meetings, it's good to know that this important traditional forum continues. At their best, town hall meetings offer legislators and their constituents a chance to talk freely, exchange critical information, put legislators in a position to make better decisions and give those constituents a stronger connection to and belief in their government. But what is really happening at town halls lately? Are changes occurring or are we just reacting to a few high profile incidents?

NCSL's Legislative Effectiveness Committee periodically studies the town hall to help legislators better communicate with their constituents. In past years the committee has used trainers and veteran legislators to coach fellow lawmakers to improve the quality of their constituent meetings. For example, in April 2008, long-time Iowa consultant Frank Spillers helped legislators learn the kinds of questions to ask at town halls to promote deliberative dialogue on the personal impact of policy choices on constituents, values, trade-offs, tensions and common ground.

This year the committee officers, led by Arkansas Speaker Robbie Wills and Alaska House staff director Tom Wright, are gathering information about how town hall meetings are changing and what legislators need to know to meet the challenge.

Here's a comment from Oregon Senator Doug Whitsett:

We attempt to listen and to understand what our constituents are saying, and to understand what concerns them at town hall meetings. We do not go in with an agenda, but rather allow those attending to express their thoughts and ask questions. We attempt to answer those questions as directly as we are able to answer. We have not had town halls disrupted; however, constituents are becoming more assertive, more assertive in expecting specific informed answers to specific informed questions. They are aware of my voting record and ask for my reasoning in voting the way that I do. 

This rise in assertiveness may be a bit unsettling, but Senator Whitsett embraces it and hopefully others will, too.

Please share any recent experiences with town hall meetings, either as a convener or a participant, in the comments link below.

Photo credit: Washington State Senator Derek Kilmer and Representative Larry Seacrest

Vermont Garden

by Meagan Dorsch

My colleague, Bert Waisanen, an avid home gardener, recently discovered what we believe to be the first, and perhaps only, state capitol food garden in Montpelier, Vermont.

Bert discovered the Vermont State House Food Garden as he waited to testify on state taxes at the capitol. It appears the garden was the project for a local advocacy group, with a goal of making Montpelier a more sustainable place to live. The group also hopes to inspire residents to create their own vegetable gardens. You can read more about the project and how it got off the ground in this blog. While he was on-site, Bert's thumb turned green with envy as workers harvested dozens of pounds of fresh greens and vegetables.  

The Vermont program is volunteer based and about a half dozen workers are dedicated to the harvest. All of the food is immediately given to local food banks. The fourth harvest of the year (which Bert was on-site for) produced over 8 lbs of cabbage, 27 lbs of beets and over 3 lbs of beans. All of the food was given to the Bethany Soup Kitchen. It looks like workers planted more kale, collards, broccoli, lettuce, beets and spinach.

The volunteers told Bert their program is the first state capitol food growing program in the US, which began this year. It appears they are correct. I attempted to Google and find other statehouse gardens, but didn't come up with any. We do know the White House has a community garden and a blog to keep track of each harvest.

Each month, Bert turns our NCSL break room into a mini farmer's market to sell fresh jalapenos, peppers, lettuce and tomatoes (I loved the peppers). Harvest time is right around the corner, so let us know if there is another state capitol that is helping to feed the community, or if you are planting the idea for this spring.

How are Students and Teachers Doing in the Classroom?

by Yilan Shen

The National Conference of State Legislatures recently held a half-day meeting where legislators and legislative staff heard from several experts in the field of teacher and student assessments. Assessing how students are progressing in their studies and how teachers are performing are essential in meeting and refining goals of public education.

Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, kicked off the meeting. Wilhoit described the shift to standard-based assessments away from normative and comparative. Wilhoit(1:51) spoke about the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and the need for common standards amongst states.

Given the change in needs and shift in recent times, Wilhoit thinks states will have several issues to address in the next few years in terms of assessments (6:08). Wilhoit began the conversation around common standards by talking about the process and nature of standards that have made assessing student achievement difficult without having a common measure (1:20), a conversation that continued with the other speakers.